The full story...

Gammy: a very innocent and rather gorgeous baby boy

ELIZABETH JACKSON: The Thai surrogacy story and the plight of baby Gammy has made headlines around the world.

The idea that an Australian couple would take a healthy child and leave the disabled one behind was so abhorrent to most people.

Then came the accusations: reports that the father of baby Gammy had in the past been charged with sex offences against children.

And amidst it all, images flashed across our TVs of little Gammy, so cute. At least it seemed as though his surrogate Thai mother genuinely loved him.

Correspondent Samantha Hawley broke the story of baby Gammy.

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Reporting on the story of baby Gammy has been difficult, draining and confronting.

I didn't realise that until the night after I'd been to the baby's surrogate family home for a lengthy visit and interview. I didn't realise it until I was walking upstairs to go to bed late the following night.

As I said goodnight to my husband, without warning I began to cry. I think they were tears of shock and disbelief and sadness. I was surprised by how deeply I was feeling.

As a mother of two young children myself I felt it, I think, even more deeply.

"Snap out of it, Sam," I told myself. "Keep a distance." But this was a hard one and I'm a journalistb but I'm also human.

It's one moment from the night I spent with Gammy and his surrogate family that gets me the most.

The baby is not feeling well so as we stand and film, his surrogate mother, Pattaramon Chanbua - just 21 years old with two other small children of her own - decides not to bath him outside in a bucket as she usually would do.

Instead, she lays him on a rug in their improvised home and she bathes him on the floor. And she plays and talks and cuddles and kisses him as she does itb with such great tenderness and care, just as any mother would do.

We captured the moments on film but watching it in person was even more moving.

(Sound of Pattaramon bathing Gammy)

The family don't speak English so everything we spoke of had to be interpreted for me and for them. I had a Thai producer with me to do that work.

We stayed late into the evening, and the surrogate mother told me not long after we left the boy was rushed to hospital with a lung infection.

Of course, since our intimate time with the family, so much has unfolded. The news broke across the world and I think audiences have been deeply touched, just as I was.

And, amid all the claim and counter-claim that's followed, at the front of my mind is little baby Gammy, a very innocent and rather gorgeous baby boy who's been caught up in the middle of a surrogacy scandal.

And, of course, there's a little baby girl and she's at the front of my mind too.